Thursday, April 1, 2021
Tucson Unified School District announced Wednesday they have authorized senior prom and graduation ceremonies for the Class of 2021.
Graduation ceremonies will be held outside each high school stadium and will follow safety protocols, including masks and physical distancing of 3 to 6 feet apart per CDC guidelines, Each graduate has a limit of four guests, each guest must have a physical ticket.
The graduation will also be on Livestream or Facebook Live, shared by each school.
TUSD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo said it's not mandatory, but officials are “strongly encouraging” all seniors to be fully vaccinated, or at least receive the first dose, if applicable, at least two weeks before the event.
Prom will be held outside at each high school with options of hosting prom in a large courtyard, stadium, or soccer field. Tickets will be sold on a pre-sale basis to ensure capacity limits.
Each school will determine whether to offer food, which would be prepackaged or provided by food trucks in a designated area with sanitized tables and handwashing stations located away from the main dance floor.
Trujillo said the activities can safely resume because of the increase in vaccine availability.
When TUSD staff was surveyed three weeks ago, more than half had been vaccinated, Trujillo said, with 4,600 out of 7,800 employees fully vaccinated or at least received their first dose. He estimates this number has probably increased since then.
Monday, March 29, 2021
The University of Arizona will offer larger in-person classes on Monday, but with “COVID exhaustion” and multiple variants of COVID-19 on campus, President Robert C. Robbins urged continued compliance to mitigation strategies.
University coronavirus policies will not change despite Gov. Doug Ducey’s lifting of COVID-19 related restrictions last week.
“We are in the fourth quarter of this term, and we need to keep doing what we've been doing that's been so successful and gotten us to this point,” said Robbins in the press briefing Monday morning. “The recent executive order from Governor Ducey, regarding COVID-19 restrictions, does not affect university policies, nor does it bar enforcement of these policies.”
He said university face-covering and all other mitigation strategies will remain in place.
The university moves to Stage 3 on Monday, where in-person and flex in-person courses of up to 100 students may offer in-person instruction.
Dr. Michael Worobey, head of the university's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, found 12 cases of the UK variant (B.1.1.7) and two cases of the California variant (B.1.429) on campus within the past two weeks as part of the research using COVID-19 genomic sequencing to track COVID-19 variants.
These variants, which are highly transmissible and have higher mortality rates, may be contagious for a longer period of time, said Worobey.
“When we look at the literature, we can see that the time when people are likely infectious is probably carried over a little bit later with this variant,” said Worobey. “So you've just got more virus that you're putting out into the world, but it's also a combination of that high viral load over a longer period of time, and that really indicates that a slightly longer isolation or quarantine time is really a smart move. We're dealing with a different beast here and we need to act accordingly.”
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Visitors to Downtown Tucson will again hear children laughing and playing when the Children's Museum Tucson reopens on March 25.
While the Museum may have been closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Executive Director Hilary Van Alsburg said that the staff has been busy working on activities, exhibits and attractions.
“We have spent the past year developing new programs, expanding our exhibits and gearing up for reopening - we are so ready for families to come back to play. Our focus is on fun engagement and welcoming families back to in-person experiences safely.”The Museum, 200 S. Sixth Ave., will be limited to one-third capacity, with timed admission at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., noon, 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Admission is $9 per person and visitors are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance at ChildrensMuseumTucson.org. Discounts are available for military and visitors on public assistance.
Anyone 5 and older will be required to wear masks inside the Museum. The extended outdoor space and visitor limit ensure there is ample room for social distancing while allowing children to explore and play.
The Museum's other location, 11015 N. Oracle Road, will reopen on April 1. They've added a new train table, updated Toddler Town and new outdoor play activities. This Early Childhood Education-focused space will be open from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday-Sunday with limited capacity. Admission is $7 per person with advance tickets available online and discounts available.
Monday, March 15, 2021
The University of Arizona will move to Stage 3 during the week of March 29, allowing in-person classes and flex in-person classes of up to 100 students, UA President Dr. Robert C Robbins announced in a briefing this morning.
On Feb 22, the university moved to Stage 2, offering in-person learning to courses with 50 or fewer students. They will continue in Stage 2 for the next two weeks.
On campus, the rate of positivity remains low, with fewer than 0.2 percent of the more than 13,000 tests in the past 10 days.
In Pima County on the week of Feb. 21, the rate of positivity dropped to 5.3 percent, nearing the goal of 5 percent for classification of minimal transmission. For the same week, the county had 78 cases of COVID per 100,000 residents, while 3 percent of reported hospital visits were for COVID-like illnesses.
While these metrics continue to decline, a total of 39 cases of the UK variant have appeared in Arizona. On March 12, the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), the Yuma County Public Health Services District and Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) reported three cases of the Brazilian variant (P.1.).
Robbins said with the help of their expert team, they feel confident that it’s safe to move forward.
“Despite the variance, the incidence and prevalence of COVID-19 continues to be low, particularly on the campus,” said Robbins. “There's not been any major outbreaks on the campus throughout, over a year of this.”
Robbins adds that they feel especially confident as vaccination efforts increase.
The University of Arizona state POD administered 15,354 vaccines the past week of March 8 to March 14, with a total of 63,745 vaccines since January.
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Friday, March 12, 2021
PHOENIX – Arizona students haven’t been properly taught about the Holocaust in recent years, according to a recent poll conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Among Arizona millennials surveyed in March 2020, 42% could not name a single concentration camp the Nazis built to detain and exterminate Jews and others deemed undesirable.
The same report found that only 48% of the state’s millennial respondents recognized the term Auschwitz, and only 33% knew the number of Jews who were killed from 1933 through 1945.
Such findings worry Lawrence Bell, executive director of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society, and other Jewish leaders in the state. The concern is heightened as more Holocaust survivors – who have been crucial to putting a human face on unfathomable tragedy – pass away.
“Memory of the Second World War is really starting to fade from popular consciousness,” Bell said. “A lot of people don’t think about the Second World War, they don’t think about the Holocaust. … It’s something that’s largely faded out.”
In October, the Arizona Department of Education made a rule change that requires students to receive instruction on the Holocaust at least twice during their secondary school career.
Thursday, March 11, 2021
WASHINGTON – As many as 1.5 million Arizona children could benefit from an expansion of the child tax credit that would mean monthly checks to parents of up to $300 per child if approved by Congress this week.
The expansion is a little-discussed portion of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the Biden administration’s sweeping pandemic relief bill that could win final approval from the House Wednesday.
Besides expanding the size of the benefit from the current $2,000 per child to as much as $3,600, the plan would turn what is now a tax credit into a regular monthly check, a major change that one advocate said could “really put a dent in child poverty.”
“There have been estimates that the child tax credit expansion will actually cut poverty for Black children by 52%, Hispanic children by 45% and Indigenous children by 61%,” said Alexandra Cawthorne Gaines, vice president of the Center for American Progress. “That is not insignificant.”
Supporters said the change would also benefit the economy by putting money directly into the hands of parents, who are expected to spend it on food, clothes, housing and other necessities.
Monday, March 8, 2021
The University of Arizona will celebrate spring 2021 commencement with a series of in-person ceremonies with the hope of honoring graduates of 2020 as well, UA President Robert C. Robbins said Monday morning.
Commencement is tentatively scheduled from Tuesday, May 11, to Tuesday, May 18, and will be live streamed and recorded.
“We're going to have many different smaller venues in order to be safe,” said Robbins. “The in-person component of the ceremonies will be for students only.”
While the planning is ongoing, the hope is to give graduates the Arizona Stadium experience, said Robbins.
Robbins paints a picture of roughly 1,000 students socially distanced and masked, each one walking to the stage and getting their moment on the Jumbotron, then walking off and out of the stadium.
“This past year has obviously been very, very challenging and I know that has had a significant impact on the senior year of this graduating class,” said Robbins. “We're all looking forward to coming together in a different, but memorable way to celebrate the academic achievements of the class of 2021.”
The Class of 2020 celebrated through a virtual commencement. Robbins wants to honor these students as well.
“They are looking at what they can do to incorporate a big celebration for those that missed out on 2020,” said Holly Jensen, vice president of communications for the university.
The university, with the help of public health officials, will continue to monitor health conditions, said Jensen.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misquoted Tempe Elementary School District spokesperson Brittany Franklin, administrators there were not discussing whether to make summer school mandatory.
PHOENIX – Before the pandemic, second-grader Melody Wiseley loved going to school. But for the past year, her life has consisted of Zoom classes and social distancing. The mundane, taken-for-granted moments she once shared with friends in the lunchroom and on the playground are cherished memories.
Her grandmother, Heidi Aranda, who is the senior director of curriculum development for Tucson Unified School District, noticed her granddaughter’s struggles over the past year. One likely remedy is summer school, which is not mandatory in Arizona, but districts are offering more classes this year to help students who struggled remotely catch up.
“She has struggled a bit with the online instruction,” Aranda said of Melody. “She is very social and she interacts with people all the time, so this has been hard for her.”
She said the learning experience in her home is different from most because her daughter – Jacqueline Aranda, who teaches in Tucson Unified – and her granddaughter live with her. But despite the teacher powerhouse, it can still be difficult to keep Melody on track.
“It’s hard because there are times where there is support at home and there’s times where there isn’t support at home,” Heidi Aranda said.
Melody isn’t the only student who struggles with remote learning.
Friday, March 5, 2021
Local students, ages 5-19, are being asked to submit original poetry, photography or visual art focusing on water and the natural world for this year’s Living River of Words contest. The deadline to enter is April 2.
In past years, Pima County's Living River of Words program took students on a field trip to study the Santa Cruz River and its surroundings: conducting water quality tests, observing wildlife and plant interactions, while taking time for reflection and journaling. Students then would work with local artists to create entries for the contest. But because of the COVID pandemic, learning experiences will be virtual this year.
Finalists and grand prize winners will have their poetry and artwork included in the annual exhibit and published in the exhibit booklet. Finalists’ artwork will also be submitted to the International River of Words contest.
For more information about the LROW program please visit www.pima.gov/RiverOfWords or contact the Pima County NRPR Environmental Education group at (520) 724-5375 or [email protected].
Learning activities will include watersheds and wetland habitats, and the practices of poetry, photography and visual arts. The schedule of upcoming workshops is available on the website and includes:
- Visual Art Workshop, ages 7-10: Wednesday, March 17, 10 a.m. – noon
- Visual Art Workshop, ages 11-14: Wednesday, March 17, 1 – 3 p.m.
- Poetry Workshop, ages 7-10: Thursday, March 18, 10 a.m. – noon
- Poetry Workshop, ages 11-14: Thursday, March 18, 1 – 3 p.m.
- Photography Workshop, ages 9-14: Saturday, March 27, 2 – 3 p.m.
- Multimedia Workshop, ages 15-19: Saturday, March 27, 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Tucson Unified School District reaffirmed their plan Thursday to open schools the week of March 22, which is in compliance with Gov. Doug Ducey’s Executive Order released Wednesday, said TUSD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo.
Trujillo said they were ahead of the order, which has put them in a good spot to safely return students, teachers and staff to campus.
TUSD schools will have to reopen to in-person learning two days earlier than planned, on March 22 instead of March 24.
While 1 out 5 parents still need to choose their child’s learning program, more than 43% percent chose remote learning, which Trujillo said is in compliance with the executive order.
The district recently purchased $1.5 million in High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) units, which are stand-alone units that can be plugged into a wall to reduce the spread of harmful particles in the air. On Wednesday, they finalized the purchase of 4,000 units for every campus, said Trujillo.
Throughout the spring and early summer, they plan to retrofit older buildings with Minimum Efficiency Reporting Values (MERV) rating level 13 filters, from level 8 filters, which refers to the filter's ability to capture harmful particles in the air as part of the HVAC system, said Trujillo.
On Monday, the district began distributing more than 50,000 N95 masks. Each school will also get at least one hands-free, bottle-filling station, he said.
House Democratic Leader Reginald Bolding and Senate Democratic Leader Rebecca Rios released a joint statement questioning Gov Ducey’s executive order.
“We shouldn't have to choose between public health and public schools,” the Democratic lawmakers said. “We all know that school is the best place for our students to learn, but we need to make decisions that protect our communities, children, teachers, support staff and parents.”
Marana School District Superintendent Dan Streeter told families on Friday that the district would resume five days of in-person instruction for pre-K through eighth grades as well as MCAT students.
Marana High School and Mountain View High School will offer in-person instruction Monday through Thursday, with Fridays reserved for remote learning so that teachers will have time to work with students who prefer to remain in virtual schooling.
